1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display panel (PDP) for a plasma display device, and more particularly, to a PDP with a single-sided driving circuit structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Invented in 1897, the cathode ray tube (CRT) has been used for the vast majority of televisions and is still the most common display type today. In a CRT television a gun controlled by a video signal fires electron beams toward phosphors covering the surface of a vacuum tube, and an image is produced by lighting up different areas of the phosphor coating with different colors at different intensities. Though a simple and mature device, the CRT features several drawbacks such as bulky size, weight, and high power consumption. The high-voltage field, oscillating magnetic field, and X-rays generated by electrons hitting the screen have been regarded as hazardous for long-term use.
Recently flat panel display (FPDs) with their flat, thin form factor and high-resolution image quality are getting more and more attention and undergoing explosive growth in the consumer market. The major types of FPDs include the plasma display panel (PDP), the liquid crystal display (LCD), and the rear projection display, featuring several shared benefits (their flat, thin form factor and undistorted, fixed-pixel image rendering) and their own unique advantages. Among them PDP continues to best fill the needs of home theater enthusiasts seeking premium-quality large-screen display devices due to several inherent benefits of the technology: premium display quality with rich, accurate and lifelike colors; wide viewing angle with equivalently stunning brightness; high contrast in both light and dark rooms; and excellent motion handling and screen integrity over the long haul. As a result PDP technology remains the benchmark and de facto standard that consumers seek when considering the purchase of flat panel home theater display devices.
A typical PDP has two parallel sheets of glass, which enclose a gas mixture usually composed of neon and xenon that is contained in millions of tiny cells sandwiched in between the glass. Electricity, sent through an array of electrodes that are in close proximity to the cells, excites the gas, resulting in a discharge of ultraviolet light. The light then strikes a phosphor coating on the inside of the glass, which causes the emission of red, blue or green visible light. According to the driving methods, there are two kinds of plasma display device: an alternating current (AC) plasma display device and a direct current (DC) plasma display device. These are defined depending on whether the polarity of voltage applied to maintain discharge is varied with time or not. The AC plasma display device is the mainstream of this display technology because of lower power consumption and longer lifetime.
An AC plasma display device comprises a PDP having two glass substrates disposed opposite to each other and a circuit for controlling and driving the PDP. One of the two glass substrates has a plurality of address electrodes disposed in parallel, and the other glass substrate has a plurality of sustain electrodes disposed in parallel and perpendicular to the address electrodes. The sustain electrodes include a plurality of common electrodes (X-electrodes) and a plurality of scan electrodes (Y-electrodes). Display cells are formed between adjacent X-electrodes and Y-electrodes. The circuit part includes several driving circuits for supplying driving voltages to the electrodes of the substrate. The electrodes of the glass substrates are formed linearly in such a manner as to extend substantially across the substrates, and electrode terminals are formed at the ends of the glass substrates. The driving circuits are disposed on a chassis mounted on the outer surface of one of the glass substrates, whereby the driving circuits are disposed within an area occupied by the glass substrate having a large area, this helping prevent a further increase in the overall size of the plasma display device. In other words, the plane in which the electrode terminals of the glass substrate are disposed is different from the plane in which the driving circuits are disposed. Therefore the use of flexible printed circuits (FPCs) is reasonable and effective for connecting the electrode terminals of the glass substrate with the driving circuits on the chassis. A plurality of bonding pads are disposed on one end of a flexible printed circuit and connected to the electrode terminals of the glass substrate, while the other end of the FPC is connected to the driving circuits directly or via an intermediate circuit board connected to the driving circuit, with the intermediate portions of the FPC being bent.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a part of a conventional PDP 10. The PDP 10 includes two glass substrates 12 and 14, a plurality of address electrodes 16 arranged parallel to each other on one glass substrate 12, and a plurality of sustain electrodes 18 arranged, on the other glass substrate 14, parallel to each other and perpendicular to the address electrodes 16. The driving circuits are disposed on a chassis 13 mounted on the outer surface of the glass substrate 12. An FPC 35 and an FPC 37 are used to connect the sustain electrodes 18 of the glass substrate 14 to the driving circuits on the chassis 13.
FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a prior art PDP 20. The PDP 20 includes a plurality of X-electrodes 22 and a plurality of Y-electrodes 24 formed in parallel on a glass substrate 14, a plurality of address electrodes 16 formed on another glass substrate 12 disposed opposite to the glass substrate 14, a plurality of X-electrode terminals 32, a plurality of Y-electrode terminals 34, two FPCs 42 and 44, two driving circuits 52 and 54, and a control board 60. In the PDP 20, adjacent X-electrodes 22 and Y-electrodes 24 form a plurality of sustain electrode pairs, which form a plurality of display cells 55 with the address electrodes 16. The X-electrode terminals 32 are formed at one end of the glass substrate 14 and the Y-electrode terminals 34 are formed at the other end. In other words, each sustain electrode pair has two electrode terminals formed at the opposite end on the glass substrate 14. Since the terminals of the electrode pairs are located at different sides of the glass substrate, two FPCs 42 and 44 are required for connection. The FPC 42 connects the X-electrode terminals 32 to an X driving circuit 52 through a plurality of bonding pads 62 disposed on the FPC 42, and the FPC 44 connects the Y-electrode terminals 34 to a Y driving circuit 54 through a plurality of bonding pads 64 disposed on the FPC 44. A control board 60 sends signals to the X driving circuit 52 and the Y driving circuit 54 for PDP operations.
The prior art PDP 20 has several drawbacks: The PDP 20 needs two FPCs and two driving circuits that increase manufacturing cost and lower production yield. Due to different locations at the opposite sides of the substrate, the two driving circuits receive signals with different amounts of delay from the control board and this largely influences PDP performance. Also, magnetic interference caused by driving circuits affects a larger area in this two-sided-FPC structure.